DESCRIBE ACTIVITIES OF PHILLIPS BROOKS HOUSE

Undergraduates look at Brooks House in many different ways. Some think of it as an organization to which it is quite the thing to give money once a year. Others look on it as a sort of fixture in the life of Harvard, undoubtedly doing a good piece of work, but not claiming their particular interest or participation. Still others, fortunately not an inconsiderable number, view Brooks House as a medium for the voluntary expression of one's religion, whether through devotional meetings or practical service; as an organization, unique in the University, whose sole excuse for being is that it aids people here and everywhere to live more helpful lives.

Brooks House is not a club-house; it is not even a center of undergraduate life. It can never and should never be either. As a building it is unique. It is a quiet house, a place for thought, meditation, prayer, if you please. Hence the rules against smoking and loud noise.

In a real sense, Brooks House is not a "house"; it is, rather, an organization. What, then, does this organization do in the College and in the community to justify its existence?

In the College, it helps students who are working their way, by collecting and lending them text books and law books for a small sum a year; by collecting and distributing suits, overcoats, and other articles of clothing; by providing a place where students living at home can eat their lunch; in special cases, by helping men negotiate loans; by supplementing the work of the College Employment Office; and by offering to students the use of the reading room and library.

Serves as Information Bureau

To all Freshmen and unclassified students Brooks House sends during the summer a letter of welcome, accompanied by a Harvard Handbook, or "Freshman Bible," as it is more commonly called. This is followed by a personal call on every Freshman after he arrives. An Information Bureau is maintained two weeks before registration, where men, some of them homesick, perhaps, may meet friends, read, write, leave their bags, procure pamphlets, maps, and find a room. Nearly 2000 rooms for students were listed by the Bureau this year, a remarkable number considering the housing shortage. Brooks House is, indeed, an all-the-year Information Bureau, where students come with all sorts of questions. One man recently wanted to get married and asked that an Episcopacy clergymen be recommended to him. Another wanted to know about the climate in Bermuda. Of a more serious nature, another asked for advice in regard to a difficulty concerning some money due him. The latter case was referred to the Legal Aid Bureau.

Brooks House believes in hospitality. It has "Open House" at Thanksgiving and Christmas, attended this year by 100 and 85 men respectively, all unable to go home for the holidays. One of them said at Thanksgiving that the party was like a "pat on the back from his mother." It cooperates with a Faculty committee which maintains the University Teas, seven in number, where students may meet professors "off duty." It gives friendly advice and comfort to students who are sick or in trouble.

Religious Center of University

Those students who desire an opportunity for purely religious observance, other than Chapel, find an outlet in the Tuesday evening devotional meeting, the activities of the St. Paul's Society (Episcopalian) or the St. Paul's Catholic Club. Others have enjoyed the discussion groups, covering political, economic, social, religious and mission topics; the Monday night meetings for Freshmen, ten in number, addressed by leading men; or the religious conferences with students from other colleges.

But in influence of Brooks House is felt beyond the confines of Harvard, even as far as Constantinople, where it is supporting a teacher on the faculty of Robert College, Charles E. Dickerson of the class of 1920. Here at home, 250 men are leading boys' clubs and doing Americanization work among foreigners through the social agencies of Cambridge and Boston. Ten entertainments for the poor, in which about fifty undergraduates have participated, have already been given this year. Three cases of students' clothes have been given to worthy people of Cambridge and Boston and one case has been sent to Armenia. Thirty-five free dinners were given to poor families in Cambridge this year, fifteen at Thanksgiving and twenty at Christmas. Under the direction of Brooks House, free legal advice is given the people of Cambridge and Boston by the students in the Law School.

Aids Toward Civic Betterment

Brooks House cooperates with the churches of Harvard Square and Boston and with philanthropic agencies in their work for civic betterment. It seeks to make the 200 foreign students in the University feel at home. It maintains self-supporting branches in the Graduate and Law Schools, and also in the Medical and Dental Schools in Brookline, where work similar to that done in Cambridge is carried on. It seeks to bring prominent speakers to Harvard, not in any sense to rival the Union's splendid program, but rather to bring to the University men who are interested in religion or philanthropic work. Some of the speakers this year have been Mr. Joseph Lee, Dr. Harry E. Fosdick, Mr. Roger Babson, Dean Charles R. Brown, Judge George W. Anderson, Dr. S. M. Crothers and Dr. Grenfell.

The House is busy day in and day out. It is never closed during the day except for two weeks in summer. Consider, for example, the daily meetings of the week of the Brown game:

Sunday, November 7.--Meeting in Peabody Hall for Law students, addressed by Sherman Whipple.

Monday, November 8.--Menorah Society in the Parlor, address by Roger Babson in Peabody Hall, address to Freshmen by Dr. W. L. Sperry (Smith Hall).

Tuesday, November 9.--Christian Association meeting in the Parlor, meeting of Cambridge Anti-Tuberculosis Association in the Parlor.

Wednesday, November 10.--Chinese Students' Club in the Parlor.

Thursday, November 11.--Harvard Dames in the Parlor, Cox-Roosevelt Club in the Shepard Room.

Friday, November 12--Japanese Students' Association in the Parlor, Near East Club in the Shepard Room, Board of Directors of the Harvard Medical School of China in the Directors' Room. During the last College year 340 meetings were held in the House, attended by 14,356 men.

The significance of this brief survey of Brooks House activities, however, is not that so many meetings have been held or that so many men go in and out of its doors, not even that every year from four to six hundred students take some active part in the work, but that here in the University there is an organization which inculcates and promotes that same spirit of service which Harvard men at all times have shown in every emergency. This, at least, is one of the heritages common to all Harvard men and Brooks House is proud to be a medium for the organized expression of this tradition.